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Chinmoy Guha
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Nationality
Indian
Books
Where the dreams cross
Role
Essayist
Name
Chinmoy Guha
Children
Surangama Guha
Occupation
Professor of english at the university of calcutta, bengali essayist and translator and a french-language scholar.Former Vice-Chancellor, Rabindra Bharati University; former editor, Book Reviews, Desh ; former director of publications, Embassy of France in India.
Chinmoy Guha (born in September 1958 in Kolkata, India) is a Professor and former Head of Department of English at the University of Calcutta, a Bengali essayist and translator, and a scholar of French language and literature. He has been the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University and Director of Publications, Embassy of France, New Delhi. Earlier he taught English at Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College in Kolkata for more than two decades, and French at the Alliance Française and the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture for eleven and five years respectively.
Guha has edited Boier Desh and the Book Reviews of Desh, a literary journal of Bengal from 2003 to 2012, where he wrote the column Boier Janala for ten years. He wrote a regular column called Ghumer Darja Thhele in Robbar, Sangbad Pratidin.
He has won the Lila Ray award of the Government of West Bengal in 2008 and the Derozio bicentenary award in 2010. He has been awarded knighthoods by the ministries of Education and Culture of the Government of France, in 2010 and 2013. Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi and the Government of West Bengal conferred on him Vidyasagar Puroshkar in 2017.
Chinmoy Guha & Krishnan Srinivasan at Kolkata Literary Meet 2019
Life and education
Guha was educated at Jagadbandhu Institution, in south Kolkata, before studying English literature at St. Xavier's College, Calcutta and completing his M. A. in English at the University of Calcutta in 1980. He completed his PhD on the Impact of French poets on T. S. Eliot (1996) from Jadavpur University where he was a Teacher Fellow for one year.
He has researched in France, Britain and Switzerland. He has lectured on Romain Rolland and India at the India Festival in Boulogne-Billancourt (2002), at University of Avignon (2004), Ecole Normale Supérieure of Lyon (2005), Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (2009), Cité internationale universitaire de Paris (2009) and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius (2012). He has been a visiting professor at the Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme, Paris (2009).
His translation of Molière's George Dandin, staged by Alliance Française de Chittagong, Bangladesh won an award in 2009.
The critical success of his work on T.S. Eliot, Where the Dreams Cross: T. S. Eliot and French Poetry (2000), resulted in him delivering lectures on Eliot’s extensive debt to Symbolist and Post-Symbolist French Poetry at St John’s College, Oxford, Manchester University, Warwick University and University of Worcester. Frank Kermode said "He has gone deeper into the French origins or sources of T S Eliot than any other commentator I have encountered" in The Sunday Times, London, 4 June 2001 and also wrote appreciatively in the Times Higher Education.
Guha's admiration for French was triggered off by a class lecture by Professor Purushottama Lal, when Guha was an undergraduate student at the St. Xavier's College. Later in life, the poet and French scholar Arun Mitra became his main source of inspiration for learning French. He has translated various works from French into Bengali. His books of essays Chilekothar Unmadini (2007) and Garho Sankher Khonje (2010) established him as a distinguished writer of Bengali prose.
Awards
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Government of France, 2013.
Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, Government of France, 2010.
The literary magazine Amritalok published a festschrift on Chinmoy Guha in April 2012.
Books
Maxims by la Rochefoucauld (Bengali translation from French), 1990, 1997. Dey's Publishing, 2007.
The Apu Trilogy by Robin Wood (Bengali translation from English), 1992, Parul Edition, 2012.
The Tower and the Sea: Correspondence between Romain Rolland and Kalidas Nag 1922–1938 (Edited and French letters translated), Papyrus, 1996; Sahitya Akademi, 2010.
Shirno Toron [Strait is the Gate by André Gide] Sahitya Akademi, 1997, 2003, 2011.
George Dandin by Molière [co-translated with Arup Rudra and edited], Model Publications, 1998.
Conjugation of French Verbs, Robert et Nathan, Tr. into English, W R Goyal, New Delhi, 2000.
Where the Dreams Cross: T S Eliot and French Poetry, Papyrus, 2000; Macmillan 2011.
Ahammaker Abhidhan [The Dictionary of Idiots] by Gustave Flaubert, Proma, 2001, Gangchil, 2007, 2009.
Danton: The Theatre of French Revolution by Romain Rolland, Anustup, 2002.
Victor Hugo: A Biography, Papyrus, 2003.
Kendra o Anupastithir Majkhane: An Anthology of French Poetry, Prativas, 2004.
Chilekothar Unmadini o Anyanya Prabandha, Ananda Publishers, 2007.
Remembering Sartre, co-edited with Sudeshna Chakravarti, Dasgupta and Co., 2007.
Time, Space, Text: Mapping Cultural Paradigms, co-edited with Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay, University of Calcutta and UGC-Academic Staff College, 2008.
Anya Jalbatash Anya Dheu: An Anthology of Twentieth Century French Poetry, Deys Publishing, 2010.
Garho Sankher Khonje: A Collection of Essays, Ananda Publishers, January 2011.
Aaina Bhangte Bhangte, Conversations with Rabindra Kumar Dasgupta, Mrinal Sen, Badal Sircar, Father Detienne, P. Lal, Tapan Raychaudhuri, Sankha Ghosh, Dipendu Chakraborty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Gangchil, 2011.
Breaking the Silence: Virginia Woolf, Ashapurna Devi and Simone de Beauvoir, co-edited with Sanjukta Dasgupta, Dasgupta and co, 2011.
On the Seashore of Humanity: The Sesquicentenary Volume on Tagore, co-edited with Professor Biswanath Roy, Chief Editor: Professor Suranjan Das, University of Calcutta, 2012.
Connecting Texts: Literature, Theatre and Cinema, Co-edited with Sinjini Bandyopadhyay, Dasgupta and co, 2016.
Articles in books
Voices from Bengal, An Anthology of Modern Poetry, (Ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri), Sahitya Akademi Kolkata, 1997.
Whatever I Write and have Written is You, An Anthology of Poems by Samarendra Sengupta, Cambridge Books, Kolkata, 1998.
“Man with the Lamp”, Be Vocal in Times of Beauty, Ed. C. Venugopal, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2000.
André Gide’s Introduction to his French Translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali, Gitanjali, Bilingual Edition, Visva-Bharati and UBS, 2003.
“Out of Place: the Translator’s Identity” in Poetry: Text and Context, UGC Academic Staff College and Department of English, University of Calcutta, 2004.
“The Return of the Dead: Laforgue and Eliot”, in Phases of Twentieth Century Literature in English (Foreword. by Amiya Dev), Thakurpukur Vivekananda College, Kolkata, 2004.
Lessons on Lessons, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2005.
"Eliot-er Purbapurush", T S Eliot: Bangali Mon o Monone, Ed Tapas Basu, Pustak Bipani, Kolkata, 1991.
"The Golden Harp: Tagore and St-John Perse", Tagore and Modernity, University of Calcutta, Dasgupta & Co., Kolkata, 2006.
“Sunya Ainar Madhye”, Anudito o Aunusari Bangla Sahitya, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, 2006.
"Alokeranjan Dasgupta" in Kritisches Lexikon der fremdsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur: Indische Literatur der Gegenwart, Edition text+ kritik in Richard Boorberg Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Germany
Lines in Anger: Protest in Literature and literature of Protest, Sponsored by University Grants Commission, Gurudas College, 2006.
“Thy Infinite Gifts, Article on Tagore and St John Perse”, Gitanjali, Parul Prakashani, Kolkata, September 2007.
Article in French: “En quête d’un nouvel espace: Romain Rolland et l’Inde" in L’Usage de L’Inde dans les littératures francaises et contemporaines (XIIIe –XXe siecles) la Société Internationale des Littératures de l’Ere Coloniale, Paris: Edition Kailash, 2008.
“Questioning the Frontiers: Rabindranath and Romain Rolland”, Narrating the (Trans)Nation, University of Calcutta, Das Gupta and Co., Kolkata, 2008.
“Quest for an Alternative Discourse”, 50 Years of Independence, Ed. Ananda Dasgupta, Gangchil, 2008.
Thots n Jots, UGC Academic Staff College, Calcutta University, 2009
Introduction, Duti Natak, Albert Camus, Tr. Palash Bhadra, Radiance, Kolkata, 2010.
“La Guirlande des beaux Accords”, Romain Rolland: Une Oeuvre de Paix, Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris, June 2010.
"Rabindranath o Romain Rolland: Muchhe Jaoa Sanglap", Rabindranath: Vakpati Viswamana, Adviser: Sankha Ghosh,Ed.Sudhir Chakrabarty, Calcutta University and Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, May 2011.
"Rabindranath o Romain Rolland", Rabindranath Thakur o Ekush Shataker Bangali, Burdwan University, Ed. Sumita Chakrabarty, May 2011.
“Romain Rolland and Annada Sankar Ray”, Desh, Kal, Patra: Commemorative volume on Annada Sankar Ray, Sahitya Akademi, 2011.
“Tagore and Anna de Noailles”, Avipshito Rabindranath, Ed. Rajatsuvro Mukhopadhyay, Deep Prakashani, 2012.
"Rabindranath Tagore and Romain Rolland: Crossing the Frontiers", in Tagore's Vision of the Contemporary World, Indian Council of Cultural Relations, and Har Anand, New Delhi, 2016.
"Esquisse d'une Grande Oeuvre: Romain Rolland et Tagore", in Romain Rolland et l'Inde: Un échange fructueux, Editions universitaires de Dijon, France, 2016.
"Bankimchandra: Natun ek Siharon", in Bangla Academy Patrika: Nirbachito Nibandha, Ed. Saoli Mitra, Paschimbanga Bangla Academy, 2017.
